"D---n her!" he exclaimed in fury, "'tis she is that _besides_! I know it. 'Tis she has been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to this day! 'Tis she has bewitched you until your blood, my lord, has turned to water. Or you would never, to save the hand that betrayed us, never to save a man--" "Silence!" Count Hannibal cried, in a terrible voice. And rising on his elbow, he poised the dagger as if he would hurl it. "Silence, or I will spit you like the vermin you are! Silence, and listen! And you, old ban- dog, listen too, for I know you obstinate! It is not to save him. It is because I will die as I have lived, fearing nothing and asking nothing! It were easy to bar the door as you would have me, and die in the corner here like a wolf at bay, biting to the last. That were easy, old wolf- hound! Pleasant and good sport!" "Ay! That were a death!" the veteran cried, his eyes brightening. "So I would fain die!" "And I!" Count Hannibal returned, showing his teeth in a grim smile. "I too! Yet I will not! I will not! Because so to die were to die unwillingly, and give them triumph. Be dragged to death? No, old dog, if die we must, we will go to death! We will die grandly, highly, as becomes Tavannes! That when we are gone they may say, 'There died a man!'" "_She_ may say!" Bigot muttered, scowling. Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but presently thought better of it, and after a pause-- "Ay, she too!" he said. "Why not? As we have played the game--for her--so, though we lose, we will play it to the end; nor because we lose throw down the cards! Besides, man, die in the corner, die biting, and he dies too!" "And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury. "Why not? Whose work is it we lie here, snared by these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrong and betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken him a year ago! Would he were within my reach now! I would kill him with my bare fingers! He die? And why not?" "Why, because, fool, his death would not save me!" Count Hannibal answered coolly. "If it would, he would die! But it will not; and we must even do again as we have done. I have spared him--he's a white-livered hound!--both once and twice, and we must go to the end with it since no better can be! I have thought it out, and it must be. Only see you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint where I can reach it. And then, when the exchange has been made, and my lady has her silk glove again--to put in her bosom!"--with a grimace and a sudden reddening of his harsh features--"if master priest come within reach of my arm, I'll send him before me, where I go." "Ay, ay!" said Badelon. "And if you fail of your stroke I will not fail of mine! I shall be there, and I will see to it he goes! I shall be there!" "You?"